Interruption by Incident

When you ride the MTR's East Rail line, delays are inevitable but in most cases don't last very long.

Most often the wait is a result of clearing the track for a cross-border train to Guangzhou, but on occasion a train can break down, the system can experience a fault, or the power can fail.

But when you're aboard a train that suddenly comes to a halt, followed by a cryptic announcement that an "incident" has taken place on the route ahead, it can only mean one thing: someone is dead.

Such was the case shortly after my train arrived at the University station. When I heard that the problem was at Kowloon Tong I knew everyone would be in for a long wait. The moment the train limped into Fo Tan I bailed and went to ground to find a taxi. A few others did as well; the rest opted to stay.

Turns out I made the right choice, because the delay lasted 40 minutes. That's how long it took firefighters to remove the body of a young woman who decided that her relationship troubles were so insurmountable that her only recourse was to jump onto the tracks. In one act of desperation, she inflicted pain into the lives of her family, friend and colleagues; traumatised scores of witnesses and caused hundreds to miss appointments or be late for work. If her secondary goal was to screw over as many people as possible while making her final statement to the world, then she succeeded.

But maybe she wasn't thinking about all that. Perhaps she was in so much turmoil she couldn't think of anything beyond herself. Now I'm not going to get into a debate about whether suicide is selfish (you decide), and I don't wish to sound callous, but hey, if you're going to off yourself by train, at least have the common courtesy to do it at a station such as Hung Hom, Mong Kok, Fo Tan or Sha Tin.

Those stations have bypass lines.

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